Underdog

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Oh no,” I said. “No.”

  “I should have, Izzy. Somebody would have found him. He was such a cute little dog. But he began whining and he was trembling. Aunt Alice said I should leave him but he was crying like a little baby.”

  “You didn’t leave him!”

  “No, I didn’t leave him. You started crying too. You said you wanted him so I took him back with us to the city and I gave him to—I gave him to a person I knew liked animals—but later, when your father asked me where Gus was, I didn’t tell him. I should have told him. Maybe if he asked me again, I would have. Maybe not. Two weeks after she died, he took you and left town and never spoke to me again. My father—your grandfather—died that same year. I think if he had lived longer, Mark and I might have been able to work it out. I tried. I did, Izzy, I wrote to him but he always sent my letters back unopened.”

  “Where is Gus, Uncle Roger?” I asked him.

  He looked at me and again his face hardened. “Izzy,” he said, “if you’re still thinking revenge after all these years ...”

  “You don’t understand, Uncle Roger. I love Gus. I mean, I loved him. And he loved me. He was my dog. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to see him. Just tell me where he is!”

  Chapter 5

  He told me.

  There was a woman, kind of a nutty woman, who hated people and loved animals. She was an old woman and she had been an old woman for as long as my uncle could remember. Her name was Mrs. Firestone even though, he said, nobody could ever remember a Mr. Firestone. When my uncle and my father were little boys they had lived in a house next to hers. Everybody in the neighborhood always complained about her because she had so many animals and her house was so run-down.

  “She was the only one I could think of, so on the way back that day, I stopped at her house. She was just the same as ever. Her house stank of cats and dogs and God knows what else,” said my uncle.

  “You gave her Gus?” I cried.

  “Yes, Izzy, I did. You were asleep and when you woke up and asked for him I suppose we must have made up some kind of story. When you went back to your father, I don’t know what he told you.” He looked at me and waited.

  “I don’t know either. I don’t remember.”

  My uncle cleared his throat. “Sometimes I think he— Mark—your father—must have known where the dog was. Sometimes I think he really didn’t want to hurt it. Maybe just for a little while, when she died, he did. But after, I don’t think he really ever tried to find it. I just wish ...” My uncle never said what it was he wished. I asked him. “Is she still there?”

  “Who?”

  “The lady with the animals. Mrs. Firestone.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It was seven years ago. She was an old lady.”

  “Please, Uncle Roger,” I begged. “Call her up. Call her up now.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Izzy, but she was always a very eccentric lady and she never had a phone.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “On Mimosa Street. We used to live there—126 Mimosa —and she lived right next door.”

  “Please, Uncle Roger, can we go there now? Please?”

  “I tell you what, Izzy,” he said, “maybe on Saturday we can take a drive over there and see if Mrs. Firestone is still there. Maybe you’d like to see 126 where we lived for so long. I haven’t been over there for years. Your father and I had a tree house in the backyard and my mother had two beautiful rhododendron bushes that just might be in bloom now. She was so proud of those bushes.”

  “But Uncle Roger that’s a whole week away.”

  “I’m sorry, Izzy, but I have a very busy schedule this week.” He looked at his watch. “Tomorrow, I’m meeting some clients and I need to look over a bunch of papers tonight. The rest of the week I’m going to be up to my ears in meetings and conferences. But Saturday I’ll take you, Izzy. I promise. Is that all right?”

  It wasn’t but I didn’t tell him.

  “Sure, Uncle Roger,” I said.

  Aunt Alice walked me to school the next morning. She gave me a key to the apartment and my lunch money and stood in the school yard with a worried look. “Now remember, Izzy, Gina, the young woman who cleans for me, will be at home when you get back. I’ve arranged for her to work afternoons instead of mornings as long as you’re with us. So she’ll be there when you get home today. You’re sure you don’t want her to pick you up at school?”

  “Aunt Alice,” I said, “I’m eleven years old and the apartment is only three blocks away.”

  “But just for this first time?”

  “I’ll be fine, Aunt Alice.”

  She nodded, her face still worried. “And you do know how to get to the principal’s office? Somebody there will take you to your classroom. Maybe I ought to come with you.”

  “Oh no, Aunt Alice,” I said. “I know where the office is.”

  Aunt Alice smiled. “I guess you don’t want anybody to think you’re a baby,” she said. “I guess it would embarrass you.”

  “That’s right,” I told her. “It would embarrass me.”

  “Well.” She looked around the yard at the kids running and shouting and laughing. “Well.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t think this school has too bad a reputation, but Izzy, if anybody bothers or upsets you ...”

  “Oh, they won’t,” I said, eager for her to go.

  Two girls hurried by, dressed in jeans, shirts, and sweaters like mine but without the fancy labels. She watched them doubtfully. “Would you want to call me at lunch?” she asked.

  “I don’t know where the phone is,” I said. “Please don’t worry, Aunt Alice. I’ll be fine.”

  She was trying hard, and she smiled a brave smile. “No, of course not, Izzy. Well, I’ll be going now. I won’t kiss you good-bye because I don’t want to embarrass you. Have a good day, dear.”

  “Oh, I will. I will,” I told her.

  I moved into the building and waited. I began counting—one, two, three.... Groups of kids passed me as they ran up the stairs ... thirty-five, thirty-six.... Two boys clowning around bumped into me ... sixty-nine, seventy.... A mother ran after a girl, calling, “Rachel, Rachel, you left your lunch. You’d forget your head if it wasn’t on your shoulders” ... one hundred eleven ... one hundred twelve ...

  When I counted up to three hundred, I stepped outside and looked carefully around. My aunt was nowhere in sight. So slowly, very slowly, I walked out of the school yard and down the street in the opposite direction to the apartment. I was not going to school that day. I was going to see Gus. I couldn’t wait until Saturday.

  In a service station, they told me which buses to take to Mimosa Street. I had a story all ready in case anybody wanted to know why I wasn’t in school. I was going to tell them that my family had just moved to 126 Mimosa that morning and that I was supposed to pick up some books at school and then hook up with my older brother, Jeremy, who was eighteen and was going to drive me over where we would join our parents and baby sister, Rachel. But Jeremy must have gotten mixed up because he wasn’t there when I picked up my books and the phone wasn’t installed yet at 126 Mimosa and I knew my mother would worry if I didn’t get there as soon as possible.

  Nobody asked me. There were two men and a teenage boy at the service station and all three of them got into an argument as to the best way to go. It wasn’t a very big street and they had to look for it on a map which kept them too busy to think about me. Which was great.

  I sat on the first bus and looked out the window and thought about Gus. I knew he was alive. He had to be alive. He would be between seven and eight years old. Not so old for a dog. Somebody said each dog year is like seven years for a person. Seven times seven makes forty-nine. Eight times seven makes fifty-six. I didn’t believe Gus could be forty-nine or fifty-six. Dogs live until they are fifteen or sixteen. I couldn’t multiply double numbers in my head but I figured it would be over one hundred, and I didn’t want to think about Gus being over
one hundred.

  I had to transfer to another bus and a friendly lady with two packages sat down next to me. I was sure she was going to ask me why I wasn’t in school but she didn’t. She dropped her keys and I picked them up for her. Then she asked me if I’d like a mint. When I said no, she asked me to hold her packages while she looked in her bag for the mints. Then she told me her daughter lived in New York and her son was in college. She forgot to take the packages back and I didn’t want to interrupt her while she was talking. I was afraid she might remember to ask me why I wasn’t in school.

  I kept watching for Mimosa but some of the street signs were missing and often the bus went whizzing by the corners too fast for me to read them anyway. This part of the city wasn’t as new and glamorous as the part my uncle and aunt lived in. The people on the streets looked poorer and I didn’t suppose there would be any fancy labels on their clothes.

  The lady was telling me about her husband’s old car. It was all banged up and she was afraid to drive around in it herself which was one of the reasons she took the bus.

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted, as politely as possible. “Are we coming to Mimosa?”

  She said I should get off at the stop after the next one. She took her packages back and I buzzed the buzzer and wiggled by her.

  “Nice talking,” she said to me.

  Mimosa was a funny, old, twisty street that began climbing as soon as I stepped off the bus. The houses were old and some of them looked shabby. I watched as the numbers climbed higher and higher along with the street and I began wondering. What if Mrs. Firestone wasn’t there?

  I couldn’t work that out in my mind but I guess all along I knew she would be there. Some old ladies never die and I knew she would be one of them.

  The rhododendron bushes were blooming in front of 126 Mimosa but I didn’t stop. Right next door lived Mrs. Firestone and there she was, out in the messiest yard I’d ever seen, burning something that smelled like banana peels and old tennis shoes. There were cans and papers and bits of broken things lying all around her. Two rusty bikes stood propped up against a spindly eucalyptus tree and a rickety baby carriage without a baby in it leaned against one side of a small, crooked house set all the way in the back of the yard.

  I heard barking, very faintly, coming from inside the house. Outside, a large, scruffy dog silently stood near his mistress and blinked at me as I came to a stop outside the gate.

  In all my life I had never seen so many cats—here and there and everywhere, stretched out on the stairs, perched on the gate, prowling the yard—more cats than I could possibly count. And there were geese—two of them, waddling around in front of a child’s plastic pool of water. But what I cared about most, what made my heart thump so hard up in my neck, was that faint barking corning from inside the house. Gus?

  But first I had to make friends with Mrs. Firestone. She was stirring the fire with what looked like a long metal spoon, and she raised her head as I stood leaning on her gate, and narrowed her eyes inside of a face crumpled with wrinkles. I gave her the friendliest smile I could manage.

  “Go away!” she said, waving her spoon at me. “Go away!”

  “Mrs. Firestone,” I said quickly, “my name is Isabelle Cummings.”

  She looked like a wicked old witch with the smoking fire beside her and the mean-looking cats, suddenly still, watching me.

  “I know what you’re up to,” she said, shaking the spoon furiously. “Your mother sent you. You tell her I’m on to her.”

  “No, no, Mrs. Firestone,” I told her. “I don’t have a mother. You’re mixing me up with someone else. My mother is dead.”

  “Your father, then,” said Mrs. Firestone. “You can’t fool me. I’ve seen you sneaking around and spying on me. You’d better be off now or I’ll set Loretta on you.” The big gray dog stiffened and snarled softly. From the house, I could still hear the faint barking.

  “Please, Mrs. Firestone,” I said quickly. “I’m not spying on you. My father’s dead too. He used to live next door when he was a little boy. It’s my uncle, Roger Cummings, he told me. He gave you a dog—Gus. He was my dog. It was seven years ago. I just wanted to come and see him.”

  “Gus?” Mrs. Firestone said. She stopped waving the spoon arid slowly raised her head up and down, looking me over.

  “Yes, Mrs. Firestone. I just wanted to come and see Gus. Please? May I see him? He was my dog and I loved him.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Firestone smiled. “Your uncle gave me a dog. I remember. About ten years ago, it was.”

  I knew it was seven but I didn’t correct her. I just stood there, nodding politely.

  “A nice dog,” Mrs. Firestone said. “But I don’t call him Gus. I call him Spencer. All my animals I call after famous actors and actresses. Except for the geese.”

  “Can I see him, Mrs. Firestone? Could you call him please?”

  “Oh, but he never comes outside anymore. He catches cold very easily. Today is so mild though that I said to him, ‘Spencer, I think you can take a chance today. It’s a lovely day, so warm and sunny. Just come out for a little while.’ But you can’t budge him when he makes up his mind. And just listen to him. He’s been like that all morning and I can’t imagine why he’s so worked up.”

  She stopped talking and we both listened to the dog inside the house barking and barking. Was it because he knew I had come? My Gus! Even though she called him Spencer, he had not forgotten me.

  “Can !...?”! began and stopped but she knew what I wanted.

  “Certainly,” she said, smiling and showing a perfectly even set of false teeth that didn’t match her crooked, wrinkled face. “Come right in. Spencer will be delighted to see you.”

  I walked into the yard and she reached for my arm and led me to the house at the back. She smelled old and dry like old newspapers but I didn’t mind. Inside, the house was crowded with piles of furniture, magazines, and old stacks of carpets. You could smell cats everywhere. I could hear Gus barking but I still didn’t see him.

  “Turn left, dear. He’s in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Firestone, hanging on to my arm. “He likes the kitchen. Now that he’s so old, he likes to be near his food.” She chuckled.

  “That’s all he’s really interested in these days is his food— silly old dog.”

  “But he’s not so old,” I cried. “He’s only seven or eight. That’s not so old for a dog.”

  “Oh, he’s older than that,” said Mrs. Firestone, her fingers tightening on my arm. “He was old when I got him. He’s the oldest one in this house. He’s even older than me.”

  She pushed me through a small, dark hall into an even darker kitchen that smelled of old fish.

  “You’ve got company today, Spencer,” said Mrs. Firestone.

  He was on a blanket under an ancient stove and when he saw me enter the room, he stood up and his bark turned into a whine.

  “You can pet him, dear,” said Mrs. Firestone. “Even if he wanted to bite you, he couldn’t. He only has a few teeth left.”

  I didn’t want to pet him because the old white dog watching me wasn’t Gus.

  “That’s not Gus,” I cried.

  “No, it’s Spencer,” said Mrs. Firestone. “I told you his name was Spencer.”

  The dog began barking again. “No, no, Mrs. Firestone,” I said. “Gus, my Gus was a little black dog. Not a white one.”

  “Now stop it, Spencer.” The old lady let go of my arm and moved over toward the dog. She patted his head and he stopped barking and licked her hand. “Go ahead, dear,” she said to me. “You can pet him if you like.”

  I shook my head and tried not to cry. “He’s not my dog. Please, Mrs. Firestone. My uncle said he brought you my dog, Gus, a little black dog. He said he left him here with you seven years ago.”

  “Oh that dog!” said Mrs. Firestone. She opened the refrigerator and took out a plate with a powerful, fishy smell and set it down in front of the dog.

  “He likes sardines,” she said, “mashed. He
and the cats —they all like sardines. But Rudolph, my other dog, he prefers Italian salami.”

  “What happened to Gus?”

  She took my arm and led me outside the house again. The fire was roaring up even higher and smellier and a very angry-looking woman with a small boy was standing outside the gate.

  “That dog,” Mrs. Firestone said. “Loretta scared him.”

  “Loretta?”

  “Loretta—over there—my cat, Loretta.” A very large, heavy calico cat sat up on top of the gate, looking at me out of heavy, sleepy eyes.

  “Loretta scared him. She was younger in those days and a lot meaner.” Mrs. Firestone chuckled. “She’s much more mellow now.”

  “Mrs. Firestone ...” the angry-looking woman began.

  “She chased him all over the place, poor little thing. He was only a puppy, and so cute. But he cried all the time. I guess he missed the people he used to live with, and Loretta wouldn’t leave him alone.”

  “Mrs. Firestone, I am going to call the police unless you put out that fire this instant,” said the woman.

  Mrs. Firestone acted as if she had not heard a word.

  “She scratched him up too. I tried to reason with her but she wouldn’t listen. She always had a mind of her own.”

  “... a disgrace to the neighborhood,” said the woman. “I’ve warned you over and over again and I know the health department ...”

  “So I had to give him away. I didn’t want him to be unhappy, poor little thing.”

  “But who did you give him to, Mrs. Firestone? Do you remember who you gave him to?”

  “... unless you put that fire out this second!”

  “Of course I remember who I gave him to,” said Mrs. Firestone. “I called the S.P.C.A., and as for you, Madam, unless you get away from that gate this minute, I’ll set my cat on you!”

  Chapter 6

  All the way home I thought about Gus. I thought about how he and I used to roll around on the floor together, me holding on to him, over and over and over again. He liked me the best, I knew that. He even liked me better than he did my mother.